36 Swifts

Today is the opening day of '36 Swifts', an exhibition at Walthamstow Wetlands Engine House 

Mezzanine Gallery 2 Forest Road London N17 9NH.

I am grateful to The London Wildlife Trust for hosting the show and for supporting me.

The show runs from 23rd June to 14th July 2025 and is open 9.30 to 4.30 

Artist’s Statement for ’36 Swifts’ Exhibition 

Dean is a local artist and art therapist, a keen bird watcher and wild camper.

The idea for the exhibition came from a number of sources, inspirations and concerns.

When I was a child growing up in Surbiton I used to watch and listen to swifts, 

swallows and martens as they flew over the filter beds on the Portsmouth Road 

alongside the Thames (the filter beds and the birds have now sadly gone).

There seemed to be thousands of birds high up in the air feeding on the insects 

which in turn lived and bred in the water.

Later I listened to swifts screaming along the streets of Walthamstow where I have 

lived for the last 33 years. This experience was different, these swifts flashed 

through the streets often in tight groups with a sense of urgency and speed.

In the last few years I have noticed fewer and fewer swifts in the streets of E17 and 

this tallies with media coverage and research about the general decline in the UK’s 

swift population. 

In 2023 I took part in (and co curated) an exhibition in the ‘Unsettled Gallery’ called 

‘Alertism’, organised by the artists’ collective Collect Connect. The exhibition was an 

exploration and critique of the government’s use of text alerts and my ‘Alert’ was a 

sculpture and a poem regarding the decline in our swift population.

The original draft title for the exhibition ‘36 Swifts’ was ‘100 Swifts’. Sadly 100 swifts 

seemed too many, a reflection of how swift numbers have plummeted recently. The 

number 36 is linked to the number of swift nesting bricks in the Swift Tower in 

the Engine House at Walthamstow Wetlands, 12 bricks on three sides of the tower.

The Swift sculptures in the Engine House are at rest, a sight most of us rarely see 

as these incredible birds are nearly always flying. Perhaps these swifts have found 

a safe landing place after their arduous and dangerous migration, a feature they 

share with many people as both birds and humans struggle with climate change, 

lack of housing and persecution.

The words stenciled on the sculptures have been provided by a network of bird 

loving people and my thanks to all of you who took part. The words provide a link 

between the sculptures and the poem. The words on the sculptures interact with 

the sadness that the poem expresses and provide us with some hope for the future 

of these beautiful, mysterious birds.

'Alertism' Collect Connect October 2023

 Swift (Polymer Clay) at Cropthorne Mill

 

Swift Alert 

Over furnaced greying streets

They used to streak

Defying gentler Hirundine

With impossible Nazgûl  screams.

 

The sharpest curves of summer

Through bladed charcoal flight

Now sundered from city skies

Suddenly going Swift.

 

(‘Alertism’ Collect Connect October 2023. Artwork Dean Reddick.)

Silver Spoon-grove

In the Autumn of 2020 I took part in 'Silver Spoon' an exhibition of art works and texts curated by artist Barbara Dougan at Grove. Blog (groveprojects.org)

Silver Spoon by Dean Reddick

Costs
Now when the man at the corner store
Says sugar's gone up another two cents,
And bread one,
And there's a new tax on cigarettes--
We remember the job we never had,
Never could get,
And can't have now
Because we're colored.
 
From Langston Hughes' 'Harlem'.
 
I used to meet the sugar factory once a year, see it looming, chained, growling, know it had been waiting for me. I didn’t speak to it, but we exchanged thoughts. I would glance at it, spoon the yoghurt my mother had given me more quickly, more intensely, and we would leave it behind. We were off on holiday to my grandparents’ in Lowestoft, to the edge of our island, the edge of ages. 
 
The punch, the embrace of its crumpled hugeness and defiant ugliness and its sniffling stench would always remind me of the dog-food factory near the Blackwell Tunnel, the one we'd pass (twelve times a year) on our way to our other grandparents. I loved them both, these brutal, immoveable animals, but they bothered me.

On one of those grandparent journeys, the people would got darker and darker and poorer and poorer. On the other, they’d get whiter and whiter and richer and richer. On each, we’d listen to John Lee Hooker and The Carpenters. We were happy, either way, emerging from our halfway house. Except... except the sugar factory reminded me that all is not what it seems. It reminded me that wild, flat, pretty, quiet Suffolk was person and system too, could be harsh and beaten and frightening too. And that poor people, dark people maybe, could live here too. 

Nothing is pure. Nothing is just sweet. Nothing costs nothing. And no-one is ever free.
 
Kevin Acott

Art of Caring 2020

Nan 2020 Pen and Watercolour

Sentinel Trees

During this years Urban Tree Festival https://urbantreefestival.org/  Collect Connect exhibited the work of artists and writers around the theme of 'Sentinel Trees' https://collectconnect.blogspot.com/

Here are my contributions;

This is a  polyester resin and bronze powder cast of a conker and its shell. The bronze in the resin can be oxidised to produce the classic bronze patina. This was quite a technically challenging cast to produce requiring an 8 piece silicon rubber mould.

The outer shell and the conker are cast as separate pieces and then assembled.

This is a polyester and slate powder cast of a London Plane tree seed. These beautiful balls of seed are mostly sterile.

These seed balls often persist on Plane trees through the winter and can be seen hanging, silhouetted amongst the branches and twigs, on street trees.